The Black Bouquet

CHAPTER 2

Aeron skulked up the twisting stairs with the saddlebag tucked under one arm, keeping an eye out for anyone who might be lurking there. The risers, a number of which were soft with dry rot or broken outright, would have creaked and groaned beneath most people's feet, but were silent under his. He knew where and how to step.

As usual, he reached his own door without incident. Considering that his father was a cripple, some might think it ridiculous that after all those years they still lived on the uppermost floor of a dilapidated tower. But it was marginally safer. The average housebreaker wouldn't climb so high just to break into such humble lodgings. And in any case, Nicos sar Randal refused to move. He liked the view.

In fact, once Aeron stepped inside the small, sparsely furnished room, locking and barring the door behind himself with reflexive caution, he saw that his father was enjoying the vista even then. The older man sprawled in a chair on the sagging balcony with its broken railing, looking out over the River Scelptar. The sunset stained the water red and burnished the three bridges arching over the flow. The floods carried the spans away every spring, and Oeble rebuilt them every summer. At the moment, they were likely the only spanking new structures in all the ancient city.

Nicos was gaunt, and no longer young, but younger than his frailty made him appear. His scars, the creases on his face and skinny limbs and the noose-mark around his neck, looked as purple as plums in the failing light

"Come watch the sun go down," he rasped.

Once upon a time, he'd possessed a voice as rich as a bard's, but the rope had taken it.

"In a minute," Aeron replied.

Glum as he felt, he would have preferred solitude, but didn't have the heart to say so. He peeled off his beggar's rags, tossed them on the floor, poured water from the porcelain pitcher into the cracked bowl, and scrubbed the bogus sores off his legs and the brown dye from his coppery hair, eyebrows, and beard. That accomplished, he pulled on one of the slate-gray borato shirts he favored, found a bottle of white wine in the little wrought iron rack, and carried it and the saddlebag out onto the balcony.

He opened the sour vintage with a corkscrew, and he and his father passed the green glass container back and forth until the scarlet rim of the sun cut the hills to the west.

Nicos said, "What's wrong?"

"What makes you think anything's wrong?"

"I know you, don't I? I can read it in your face and the way you carry yourself."

Aeron sighed. He sometimes tried to avoid telling his father about his various jobs, because it made him fret. But somehow he generally wound up confiding in him anyway.

"I stole something this afternoon."

"I assumed you didn't buy the pouch," Nicos replied, "or what's inside it."

"No. It was a complicated kind of job. I needed help, and things went awry."

Nicos nodded somberly. Probably he was remembering times when his own thefts didn't go as planned.

"I take it one of your helpers came to grief."

"Not one. All three. Kerridi, Gavath, and Dal."

"Damn. I'm sorry." Nicos took a slug of wine, then passed the bottle and asked, "Are they dead, or did the Gray Blades take them alive?"

"I think they're all three dead."

"Well, that's sad, but likely best for you and them both."

"I know. It's just… I had to dry Dal out to make him fit to work. I had to buy him new powders, trinkets, and whatnot to cast his spells. I felt smug-proud of myself for being a true friend and helping him out that way. Now it turns out what I was really doing was digging his grave."

"You can't blame yourself. He knew the risks. They all did."

"I suppose."

Nicos hesitated, then said, "You needn't feel guilty, but you can learn from what happened. Rethink the path you've-"

"Please," Aeron snapped, "let's not argue about that all over again. I relish stealing as much as you did in your day, I'm just as good at it, and I can't think of any honest work I could do that would bring in enough to pay for all your poultices and medicines."

Nicos spat, "Don't put it on me. I never asked you to risk your neck just to ease my aches and pains."

"You didn't have to."

"Anyway, if you're such a clever thief, why did your plan turn to dung?"

"Because I dared to steal something inside the walls of the Paeraddyn, I suppose."

Nicos blinked and said, "You're joking."

"No. Kesk Turnskull hired me to do it."

"The tanarukk? You're even madder than I dreamed. I'd better have the story quickly, before you take it into your head to jump off the balcony, just to find out if you can fly."

And so, as the sky blackened, the stars twinkled into view, and the fishermen plying the river in their skiffs lit the colored lanterns hanging fore and aft, Aeron told the tale. Nicos hunched forward, intent, fascinated despite himself. He might worry about his only son's manner of living, but he enjoyed hearing about his escapades. Aeron knew he remained a thief at heart, and would still be robbing folk himself if only his broken body would allow.

Perhaps it was his father's grudging admiration, or simply the wine warming his belly, but as he related the events of the afternoon, Aeron's sorrow receded somewhat, making way for a swelling of pride. Because, though he'd paid a heavy price for his boldness, he'd taken loot from within the Paeraddyn, and in all Oeble, what other knave could say the same?

The story and the wine finished together. He set the empty bottle down carefully. Put one in the wrong spot, and it would topple over and roll off the slanted platform, perhaps to brain some luckless soul passing in the street below.

His scars and infirmity veiled in darkness, Nicos sat quietly for a few more seconds, evidently pondering, then asked, "If you'd known, would you still have tried?"

"Known which?"

"That someone cast spells of warding on the saddlebag. That it had so many able warriors looking after it."

Aeron shrugged and said, "Probably. If we'd known about them, maybe Dal could have neutralized the other mage's enchantments. Then, using the potion, I could have stolen the prize without anyone noticing, and it wouldn't have mattered how many guards were hanging around. But of course, we didn't know. If Kesk had any notion how well protected the prize would be, he didn't see fit to warn me."

"Maybe for fear you'd pass on the job."

"Maybe," said Aeron. "I certainly wouldn't put it past the ugly bastard to withhold vital information."

Aeron pulled open the mouth of the scuffed old saddlebag, slipped out the steel lockbox inside, and hefted it in his hands. It weighed several pounds, and didn't clink or rattle when shaken. Almost any sort of treasure might rest inside.

He rose and fetched his pigskin pouch of picks and probes.

Nicos gave a disapproving grunt and asked, "Do you think Kesk would like you opening the box?"

"Since he specifically told me not to, I doubt it, but I want to see what my partners died for."

"Well, if you must do it, at least make sure you don't break the lock, or-"

"Or leave any telltale scratches around it I know."

Though he wasn't as adept at teasing open locks as some thieves, Aeron thought he could manage it.

As soon as he inserted a fine steel rod in the keyhole, however, a thunderclap boomed. The blast of sound jolted pain through his bones, kicked the strongbox out of his lap, and sent him tumbling backward in his rickety old chair. Worse, it set the whole balcony bouncing up and down. Aeron lay perfectly still, terrified, certain that the platform was about to tear free of its moorings at last.

Gradually, though, the oscillation subsided, and he lifted his head. Nicos's seat had remained upright, but scooted to the very brink of the balcony, where luckily the older man had fetched up against an intact section of railing, which sufficed to keep him from falling over. Aeron scrambled forward and hauled his wide-eyed parent back from the edge.

Then he thought to look for the case. It had slid to the brink as well, and he felt a sudden impulse to kick it off. Naturally, though, he picked it up instead.

Nicos spoke to him, but he couldn't make out the words through the ringing in his ears. The day had been hard on his hearing. A few more such magical mishaps, and he'd likely be deaf.

"Say it again," he requested.

"I said, another ward," the scarred man repeated. "Wards on the bag and the coffer, too."

"Do you think that was the last of them?"

"I'm not a wizard. How would I know? I wouldn't count on it."

"You're right," said Aeron. "I'll leave off trying to open it. But damn it, the thing got Kerridi, Dal, and Gavath killed, and now it almost did the same to us. To be so well defended, it must be incredibly valuable." He smiled slowly. "Too valuable to hand over for a single bag of gold, even a big one."

"Don't talk crazy. Nobody crosses the Red Axes."

Aeron smiled and said, "I won't. Kesk can have the booty. But first he's going to have to renegotiate our deal."

Sefris Uuthrakt sensed that something was abroad in the night, something, perhaps, spawned in the famously abomination-haunted Qurth Forest to the northeast, but no matter how she tried, she couldn't yet pinpoint its location. Perhaps she would have had better luck if she stood still, but that she was unwilling to do. A task awaited her in the city ahead, and one didn't dawdle when the Lady of Loss called her to serve.

So, trusting in the skills she'd worked so hard to master to protect her if necessary, her legs tirelessly eating up the miles, she simply jogged on down the trail that wound across the hilly grasslands. Her one concession to prudence was to pull a cestus, a leather strap loaded with iron pellets, onto the knuckles of each hand. She was supposed to look like a meek and inoffensive traveler, a pilgrim, perhaps, seeking a shrine of the Morninglord, the Binder of What is Known, or some other weak and contemptible deity, and the enchanted weapons rather spoiled the illusion. But at the moment, she had no companions to remark on them, and in any case, certain creatures existed that even the naked fists of a monastic couldn't damage.

She was passing a stand of twisted elms when something cracked like a whip. She pivoted, dropped into a fighting stance, and peered, using the periphery of her vision. At first, she saw nothing. She was an initiate of the night, yet human, and despite her training, darkness could still hinder her to a degree. Finally, though, she spotted the source of the noise. For an instant, it looked like a long strip of black cloth caught in the branches. Then, however, she realized she was looking at a living creature crouched on its perch, its wings spread and poised to flap.

The flyer's round eyes glared, and it bared its fangs. Come on, Sefris thought, either attack or clear off. You're wasting my time. Then she felt something rushing at her back.

She spun to the side, and a second creature, its foaming jaws gaping wide to bite, hurtled through the space where she'd just been standing. The tip of one furry, beating wing brushed her cowl back, half exposing the shaven scalp beneath. Seen up close, the beasts resembled the huge bats that sometimes lived in the biggest, deepest caverns, but with a hint of submerged humanity in the shape of the head and torso and the over development of its bandy legs. For one attacker to distract her while the other sneaked up at her back bespoke more than animal intelligence, and she thought she understood what manner of brute she faced. The cesti had been a sound idea, even if they were of no use at that moment. The werebat soared up out of range before she could throw a punch.

The chakrams she carried concealed about her person, sacred to the Lady of Loss though they were, didn't carry the same sort of sorcerous enhancement, and thus were apt to prove ineffectual against shapechangers. Such creatures possessed a degree of resistance to mundane sources of injury. But initiates of Sefris's order mastered not one lethal discipline but two, and thus she still possessed ways of attacking the werebats at range. She snatched a pinch of sand from a hidden pocket, tossed it in the air, and breathed words of power.

As sometimes happened, her magic made the darkness shift and whisper around her. The werebat that had just swooped aloft lurched in the air, then plummeted, fast asleep. It smashed into the ground with a bone-shattering crunch, and the corpse began to flow, the wings shrinking as it reverted to its alternate form.

The other shapeshifter shot out of the twisted tree. Perhaps its companion's death had enraged it, or maybe it simply wanted to deny the sorceress the opportunity to cast another spell. In any case, it plainly intended a furious assault.

Had she not schooled her features to resist such random impulses, Sefris might have smiled. She'd done her best to unlearn all emotion save for the spite and bitterness befitting a servant of her goddess, but in truth, she'd never quite managed to quash the joy she took in killing. And though striking someone dead with magic was satisfying in its own way, nothing matched the exhilaration of destroying an opponent with her hands.

The werebat swooped at her. She sidestepped the gnashing fangs and punched at the creature's chest, seeking to smash right through the ribs and into the vital organs beneath.

The blow slammed home, shattered bone, and the shapechanger shrieked, the cry pitched so high that it was more a stabbing pain in her ears than an actual sound. Its outstretched wing swatted her.

She yielded to the impact, permitting it to fling her to the ground, and instantly somersaulted to her feet. The werebat flew upward, but in a jerking, labored manner that revealed she'd hurt it badly. Perhaps it would flee without delaying her any further. Despite the pleasure she would take in its demise, she supposed that would be for the best.

It didn't flee. It wheeled high above, likely out of range of any of her spells, until a couple more vague black shadows joined it. Sefris couldn't tell precisely how many there were, but evidently an entire flock-if that was what one called a family of werebats-had gone hunting across the hills that night, and the wounded one had called them all in to deal with her.

Good. If she killed them all there and then, she wouldn't have to worry about another ambuscade later.

The werebats dived at her. It took long enough to give her time for another bit of sorcery. She rattled off a sibilant couplet, flung out her arm in a cabalistic gesture, and a jagged shaft of darkness leaped from her fingertips. It struck the creature in the lead. The lycanthrope's wings flailed crazily, out of time with one another, and it veered off course.

Then its fellows were right over her head, or nearly so. Fortunately, their size precluded their attacking all at exactly the same time, lest they foul each other's wings. She blocked with her forearm, bashing a set of foaming jaws out of line, then whipped the blade of her hand against the werebat's neck. She grabbed hold of its loose hide, yanked it out of the air, and smashed it down on the ground.

She nearly followed up with a stamp kick before remembering that her sandal-clad foot likely wouldn't hit hard enough to overwhelm a lycanthrope's mystical defenses. Unfortunately, she didn't have time to drop to one knee and continue bashing the brute with her hands. The next shapechanger was already hurtling at her.

She killed that one cleanly with a spear-hand strike to the chest, then leaped clear before its body could flop down on top of her. Another plummeted at her, saw that she was ready for it, and swooped high again.

Something rustled in the grass. She glanced down. Apparently when she'd hit the one werebat in the throat, she'd injured it in a way that prevented its taking to the air again. But it was still game; it was scuttling at her.

She sprang back from it and swept her hand through a mystic pass. The shadow of a nearby sapling reared from the ground and lashed itself around the lycanthrope. The creature flailed helplessly inside the inky coils.

Sefris knew that when she'd focused on the grounded brute, its fellow had surely dived, and by then was nearly in striking range. Peering upward, she whirled, and there it was, its glistening fangs mere inches from piercing her flesh. One such bite, assuming it didn't kill her outright, could change her into a creature like itself. The prospect didn't horrify her as it might have many another person, but neither was it anything to be desired. She was already the instrument the Dark Goddess intended her to be.

She grabbed the werebat by the neck to hold its teeth at bay. Her weight dragged it out of the air, and locked together, they tumbled over the grass. She kept hold of its throat and squeezed, the cesti lending the choke hold an efficacy it might otherwise have lacked.

The werebat struggled frantically, but only for a few heartbeats. Then its spine snapped.

Sefris sprang to her feet. Nothing else was wheeling against the stars or streaking down at her. If any shapechangers remained aloft, they'd evidently decided to leave their comrades unavenged and seek easier prey.

That just left the bodies on the ground, some of which had reverted almost entirely to human, and the shapeshifter still tangled in the shadow tentacle.

When it saw her looking at it, it stopped squirming and abased itself. Despite its bestial features, the enormous, pointed ears and wrinkled snout, she could tell it was begging for mercy. Perhaps offering itself as her slave if only she would spare its life.

Maybe it truly imagined that she might. Maybe it hoped she'd recognize some degree of kinship between them-both killers, both haunters of the dark.

If so, it had mistaken her nature. Sefris had never been particularly prone to sympathy, and her training had purged every trace of it from her soul. Insofar as her limited mortal mind permitted, she strove to emulate her goddess's hatred of all things, whether good or evil, fair or foul, human or monstrous. Killing gave her joy, but she labored not to seek or wallow in the pleasure, but rather to slaughter as an expression of a pure, cold will to destroy.

Such being the case, she wouldn't play with the werebat, wouldn't torture it or savor its desperation. She lunged forward and drove her fist into the center of its low forehead, shattering its skull.

She took a deep breath, and without a backward glance, she trotted on, carrying retribution and ruin to Oeble as her Dark Father had commanded.